Oregon Hikers

As the trail is officially open I went up Mt Defiance Trail to have a look at the damage. Pretty extensive the trail vanishes a couple of times and erosion is going to be an ongoing problem.

Some of you may have seen this feature at the north end of Defiance Trail where PH mcds carved this notch and placed the step a few years back - the step got burned a bit.

01mcds by pauljess999, on Flickr

I watched this ridge burn from over on Dog Mtn during the fire. At the time I did not think the north end got hit, I was wrong.

02NorthEnd by pauljess999, on Flickr

03BurnedTree by pauljess999, on Flickr

Things get worse as you go south.

04DeadTrees by pauljess999, on Flickr

08Trail by pauljess999, on Flickr

09Trail by pauljess999, on Flickr

10Trail by pauljess999, on Flickr

A mile marker reveals itself.

07MileMarker by pauljess999, on Flickr

Lindsey Ridge burnt.

05LindseyRidge by pauljess999, on Flickr

Near the wilderness boundary. Dead trees.

06MoreDeadTrees by pauljess999, on Flickr

Fire up to the wilderness boundary sign at 4000'.

11WildernessSign by pauljess999, on Flickr

Out of the fire zone things returned to normal. Green Pt Mtn and Bear Lake from the west side trail around Defiance.

12GreenPtBearLake by pauljess999, on Flickr

Warren Lake

12WarrenLake by pauljess999, on Flickr

I tagged Defiance and returned on Starvation Ridge. I expected a crowd but it was no busier than any other weekend on Defiance.

It will grow back eventually and in the meantime views will open but unfortunately not in my lifetime.

--Paul

Part of me just doesn't want to go in and see it. Probably will just go up/down Starvation.
With the sun higher today we could really see the damage from Hardy Ridge.
It's pretty brutal.

Great to see you on the trail Pablo!

Mike (aka GoalTech)

Hey Pablo, was that dead deer on the trail down by the power line when you came up? It spooked me on the way down. It looked super fresh, like it had just happened. I wondered if saw it. (You would have had to skirt around it, so you couldn't have missed it)

Mike

mjirving wrote: ↑

May 20th, 2018, 9:51 pm

Hey Pablo, was that dead deer on the trail down by the power line when you came up? It spooked me on the way down. It looked super fresh, like it had just happened. I wondered if saw it. (You would have had to skirt around it, so you couldn't have missed it)

Mike

Howdy,

Nice seeing a fellow PHer on the trail.

I went up using the old Defiance trail head near Lindsey Creek so I would have missed this feature. I saw the dead deer pic in your report, strange place for a deer to die but they all die somewhere, don't they.

--Paul

I can't wait to get into other trails in burned area

Thanks for the report and great photos Paul, also nice to see some of mcds's handiwork survived, built to last!